


Herbert plays The Sims

by RebelMage



Category: Tanz der Vampire - Steinman/Kunze
Genre: Also sorry but I couldn't think of a title haha, M/M, sorry this is pretty much pure crack??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 21:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1178166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebelMage/pseuds/RebelMage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trying to find a distraction from thoughts of a certain pretty boy, Herbert turns to playing The Sims.<br/>The results are pretty much disastrous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Herbert plays The Sims

**Author's Note:**

> So, the idea for this was hatched during a livestream, and I started writing that during it.  
> I lost a lot of writing tempo later on, but I decided I had to finish this, so here you go.  
> (Also, it's the first day of Alfred x Herbert week, so that's another reason to finish this now.)

Herbert has never really been into gaming. He’s been around since long before the computer was around, and he remembers when video games were first created. He remembers the time of arcade games, but he never got into that because the arcades usually closed before he could go outside. He remembers when computer games consisted of the bare minimum, sometimes just ASCII characters. Now, games are hyper-realistic and full of intense music and Herbert is left wondering just when that happened.

The thing is, Herbert wants a distraction. Alfred is ignoring his advances in favour of living his own life in the sunlight, naïvely in love with some girl. Well, if he wants to be like that, fine. Two can play at that game. Herbert isn’t pouting, not at all.

So, since he’s finding himself with a lot of spare time on his hands, he decides to check out some of these video games people are obsessed with nowadays. However, upon looking up a couple of things, he’s faced with a lot of choices. So, he decides that he wants to be able to play as a vampire, just to limit the choices. He spends a long time playing Skyrim, which people had seemed very enthusiastic about, before deciding to play something very different.

That’s when he discovers The Sims and all hell breaks loose.

It had seemed like a simple and nice idea, at first. He’d created a Sim-version of himself, and it only seemed natural to create one of Alfred as well. It’s not because he’s thinking of him all the time. It’s just because he’d like to play with a human Sim as well! That’s it. Not because his mind continually wanders to Alfred, not because those eyes are always there, at the back of his mind.

(And if he spends a lot of time making Sim-Alfred perfect, even downloading custom content to get the perfect everything, well, nobody needs to know that.)

It all starts off well. In fact, it starts off really well. Sim-Alfred responds well to Sim-Herbert’s flirting. (At this, Herbert is slightly upset, because it reminds him of the real Alfred’s refusal.) Sim-Alfred starts a career in science and Sim-Herbert starts painting so that he doesn’t have to worry about the sun. He laughs at his Sim’s first attempts at art and almost falls of his chair, squealing, when Sim-Alfred and Sim-Herbert share their first kiss.

It takes him a while to decide, but in the end he makes Sim-Alfred ask Sim-Herbert to turn him. This, again, makes his heart ache, because he’d love to have the real Alfred by his side as a vampire. (Not that he doesn’t love him as a human – he most certainly does – but the idea of spending eternity with Alfred thrills him.)

After that, before Sim-Alfred has fully turned, he quits the game because he’s been at it for far too long. He won’t deny that he’s looking forward to seeing what Sim-Alfred will be like as a vampire. If, once he’s in his coffin, he’s thinking of several of the things he’s just played out happening in real life, well, nobody needs to know.

❧

It takes a couple of nights for him to get to playing The Sims again. Herbert’s still avoiding Alfred, although it doesn’t really seem to have any effect on the human boy yet. However, Herbert’s not the type to give up that easily. He’s never been a very patient person, though, so he’s decided to give it a couple more days. It won’t be giving up, he tells himself. He’ll just be changing tactics.

However, for now, he has a game to get back to. Starting it up takes a long time, but that’s all right. He can be patient when he wants to. Sometimes.

Okay, he’s not a patient person, and he’s staring at the screen as the loading bar fills up, but that’s okay! Nobody’s perfect. He’s spinning around in his chair as he waits, trying to distract himself while _not_ thinking about Alfred and the situation he’s in.

Once the game has _finally_ loaded, Herbert gets straight into action. He’s starting to see the appeal of these video games, if he’s honest. Everything’s going well in-game, as well. Sim-Herbert just levelled up his painting skill and Sim-Alfred just got a promotion, and –

No.

No, no, no, no, no, no, _fuck no_.

Herbert forgot to pay attention to Sim-Alfred’s thirst motive for _one second_ , and now he’s dead.

This can’t happen, no, so Herbert pauses and saves before he alt-tabs out of the game to look up a way to stop this. Then, he realises that saving might have been a mistake, because now he can’t undo it, and he quickly turns off the computer in rage.

Who needs that silly game, anyway? It’s just a useless pastime that he shouldn’t have bothered with. It’s all Alfred’s fault, really. If he hadn’t ignored Herbert, none of this would have happened. Well, who needs him, anyway? Who needs silly games and pretty boys? Not Herbert, that’s for sure.

If he spends the rest of the night sulking, it’s for completely unrelated reasons. He just needed to get some sulking done; he’s been getting behind on that. He has a very strict schedule when it comes to sulking, and he can’t slack on that. The results would be disastrous.

❧

It only takes a day for him to start his computer again. It’s just been nagging at him; all he’s going to do is look up whether he can bring Sim-Alfred back in some way. A simple Google search tells him that, yes, it _is_ possible. It’ll take some effort, but he can do it.

❧

He can’t do it. He just _can’t do it_. He’d decided not to use cheats, and he isn’t going to change his mind this far in. However, he’s finding it incredibly difficult to juggle all the things he has to do in-game. There is just so much to do and it’s _not fair_. Sim-him and Sim-Alfred are supposed to be together and live happily ever after. They’re not supposed to be separated by death because he wasn’t looking out for Sim-Alfred’s health well enough.

Furthermore, what does that say about him as a person? Would he ignore the real Alfred’s needs in favour of having fun? He can take care of other people perfectly well. Sure, he’s had pretty bad experiences with pets in the past, but he’s very capable of looking after his flowers. He’s responsible. He really is. It’s EA’s fault. Not his.

So, you know what? Screw EA. Screw their game dynamics and screw his decision to play this without cheats. He just wants Sim-Alfred back so his mind will be at peace again, damn it. He just wants to get this over with, so he presses the shortcut keys to get to the cheat pop-up and makes sure he can have some peace of mind in a while.

With cheats, it’s not that hard to get all the skills he needs to the right level, and, although it takes him a while to gather the necessary ingredients, he’s finally able to make sim-Herbert prepare ambrosia. There, he’s done it. Ghost-Sim-Alfred is now eating the ambrosia, and… he’s alive again. Sim-Alfred’s alive again. See, Herbert is perfectly capable of looking after people (or Sims).

Having taken care of that, he’s not really interested in the game anymore. It’s lost his attention, mostly because he’s been playing it for so long now, and there are no more important goals for him to fulfil. He just lets the two Sims share one last kiss before he saves and exits.

(Now on to his next _quest_ , which is to get the same ending with the real Alfred…

Herbert is even more determined to achieve that goal.) 


End file.
